


To Keep It Warm

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Worry, injured on the job
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 22:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16292915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: So when he feels the bite of the bullet on his side, Illya is downright annoyed at the idea of it. The fact that he basically chose it, stepping in front of Gaby-- well, that makes it tolerable, even when he knows that Gaby is going to beangryat him.





	To Keep It Warm

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: “I’m not going anywhere.”

Illya knows wounds, and he can work around most of them until the mission is done. Sure, broken bones are painful, but if the bone is set and immobilized, then you can keep going, and stabbing is, frankly, your own fault if you were sloppy enough to get hurt from someone getting that close and doubly so if you were careless enough that they got you somewhere serious. And, frankly, in most cases, pain is, simply, an adrenaline shot, something else to focus. Most wounds are, frankly, mildly annoying at the worst. 

There isn't really much working around when you get shot. Even in the best of cases, when it was a clean shot and the bullet went through and it _didn't_ hit somewhere important, it would need sutures and, at worst, surgery and recovery time and it could compromise a mission. 

So when he feels the bite of the bullet on his side, Illya is downright annoyed at the idea of it. The fact that he basically chose it, stepping in front of Gaby-- well, that makes it tolerable (barely), even when he knows that Gaby is going to be _angry_ at him. 

Solo goes to his uninjured side to help him up-- as strong as Gaby is, she wouldn't be able to help him walk, and Gaby picks up his gun when he drops it (and Illya worries because as talented as she is at most things, her aim with guns is still 50/50) and she shots at the person who shot _him_ , who could have shot her, and perhaps it's her fury that gives her aim this time because Illya hears the sound of a body hit the water with a splash, even as he lets the pain make him focus on trying to walk as fast as he possibly can while the wound keeps tearing at his side.

*

It ends up being the most annoying kind of wound, the one that requires mandatory _bed rest_ over something so stupid as losing his spleen because of the gunshot. 

"At least we've got the evidence we needed," Solo says. "HQ says they'll send another team for the clean out. I'll go and pick them up to put them up to day. Do you want to come, Teller, or you'd rather play nurse for Peril here?"

He mutters something rude in Russian that makes Solo raise an eyebrow, but Gaby, who has been simmering in her anger for over one night, merely opens her purse to give Solo the keys to the car, which pretty much makes Illya and Solo understand just how furious she is: in all of their missions, if there is a car, Gaby is the one to drive, no buts, no ifs. Solo gives him two raised eyebrows in a show that Illya gets is a brief question of solidarity, a quiet offer to tell Gaby that she should go with Solo after all, something to perhaps distract her, as if they didn't know that Gaby's anger has the same inevitability of a sunrise. 

Illya has never been one to delay things, so he shakes his head only one time.

When Solo closes the door to their rooms, Gaby moves to stand in front of his bed. Illya is completely certain that if he wasn't wounded, she'd be hitting him: might, still, for the way her brown eyes seem to burn.

"So. Why exactly did you think it was a good idea to do that? Do you have a deathwish, Illya?"

If it wasn't for the quiver in his voice, Illya thinks he would have allowed his own anger to come through. He could tell her about how it's not the same when someone his build gets hurt versus someone of _Gaby's build_ does. About how the wound had been on his side but it would have, most likely, gone through one Gaby's lungs. How even if she was incredibly talented for the way she had picked up spying she still made mistakes and she should have been more aware of their surroundings, then perhaps nothing would have happened.

But there is the quiver and the way Gaby is holding tightly unto her arms, tightly enough that Illya notices the deep mark of her nails on the soft skin of her arms from hours and hours of worry. 

Gaby, he realizes, is already blaming herself. And Gaby is _scared_ for _him_.

Sometimes, Gaby makes it so easy for him to forget that this life is so very new for her. He softens around her, the way it has been since the very first day he met her, and he moves his hand to touch her face.

"I'm not going anywhere, Chop Shop Girl," he says softly. 

Gaby's wounded eyes look at him, but she leans her face against his hand.

"I'm still mad at you," she says. 

You would have done the same for me, Illya doesn't say, because the idea of Gaby wounded because of him makes his blood boil, and also because confronting Gaby with her own emotions is, most of the times, the fastest way to make her leave and he is tired and sore and in pain and he just wants her there.

"I know," he says instead. 

Gaby sighs, a soft, painful noise that hurts Illya's heart, and then she moves-- away, he despairs for a moment, but then he notices how she takes off her shoes, then her earrings, moving to his uninjured side before climbing on top of the bed, laying down until she can rest her head on his shoulder and she can press her hand against his chest, as if the only way she could be certain he was okay was with the steady beat of his heart under her palm.


End file.
